Technology, Employment and Wellbeing

In our second issue of the Technology, Employment and Wellbeing blog, we would like to acknowledge an important milestone in the labour protection for the EU workers in the gig/platform economy.

After more than two years of negotiations, the platform work directive has been adopted on 11 March, 2024. The Directive provides important legal provisions on the rights of misclassified workers and automated decision-making systems in the workplace used by platform companies.

However, in realising a fairer future of platform work in Europe, numerous issues that are crucially intertwined with the functioning of the platform economy infrastructures, such as taxation, subcontracting and algorithmic design are still to be addressed in the upcoming years, when a patchwork of national regulations on platform work is more likely to emerge.

In the first two articles of this issue, Ben Wray and Oliver Philipp provide an overview of the challenges and uncertainties surrounding the adopted text of the platform work directive as well its upcoming implementation.

While the presumption of an employment relationship for platform workers has been widely discussed in the last few years, Franziska Baum in her article, questions why there has been a strong preference for self-employment for many workers in the care sector.

Padmini Sharma and Delia Badoi look at migrant platform workers for whose employment status re-classification might not translate into stronger and greater social protection.

In the last article of this issue, Barbara Švagan discusses why many workers in precarious working conditions, find their  “dirty jobs” meaningful and satisfying.